Small-Bank Sellers Want Too Much Money, PNC Chief Says

James Rohr — having handled two of the biggest postcrisis bank acquisitions — says dealmaking is low on his priority list for PNC Financial Services Group (PNC).

The small banks up for grabs are "very expensive," and their deposits "aren't worth very much," the chairman and chief executive of the Pittsburgh company told investors and analysts during a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings.

With the mergers and acquisitions market relatively quiet, the $300 billion-asset PNC would rather focus on getting the most out of its purchases of RBC Bank (USA) in Raleigh, N.C., and National City in Cleveland, Rohr said. PNC paid $3.5 billion for the RBC unit in March and $3.9 billion for National City in 2009.

PNC's two best uses of excess capital are making loans to new customers and returning money to shareholders via stock repurchases or dividend increases, Rohr said.

"We really want to execute around the National City and RBC USA acquisitions. I think the loan growth and the customer growth has been quite terrific," Rohr said. "That's where we're going to really focus."

PNC's net income fell 40%, to $546 million, in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, mostly because of sharply higher mortgage-putback costs. Charges tied to trust-preferred securities redemptions and RBC Bank-related merger costs also hurt profits.